Loop Theater

165 N. State Street,

Chicago,
IL60601

I remember they brought the “Open Letter to Jane Anders” ad campaign back when the adult CINDERELLA appeared at the Loop during the summer of 1977. If I remember correctly, one of the “letters” was from a woman who was unhappy with her banker husband because he spent too much time wrapped up in work and would not take her to the Loop Theater to see CINDERELLA. Jane Anders' response: “Tell him to leave you a loan.”

Below link has photos from a 1940 dual premiere at the Chicago and State-Lake Theatres. One photo of the TeleNews, which I added to the Loop’s Photos Section.
I added the link to the Chicago and State-Lake CT pages too.
Copy & paste to view.

Here are a few paragraphs about the Telenews Theatre from the January 5, 1940, issue of The Film Daily:

“LATEST IN EQUIPMENT IN CHI’S TELENEWS

“Chicago — Latest advances in motion picture theater equipment are incorporated in the new Telenews Theater recently opened here by its owners and operators, Midwest News Reel Theaters, of which Herbert Scheftel of New York City is president.

“House has RCA sound, Simplex projectors, and American Seating Co.’s Bodiform chairs. Approximately 400 of the latter are installed on the main floor of the auditorium, and 200 in the balcony.

“A Westinghouse air conditioning system is used, Perey turnstiles, and Stanley Bigelow carpets supplied by Marshall Field Co.

“Marshall Field supplied the furnishings for the rest rooms. Equipment contract was executed by National theater Supply.

“Shaw, Naess and Murphy were architects.”

The first Telenews Theatre opened in San Francisco on September 1, 1939, just in time to show newsreels of the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany. The timing helped make the theater a tremendous success, and the company rapidly expanded to other cities. Not surprisingly newsreel theaters flourished during the war and early post-war years, but went into decline with the arrival of television, which could bring breaking news into people’s homes. Still, a handful of newsreel houses hung on into the 1960s, usually by pairing newsreels with feature-length documentaries.

Charles F. Murphy, who had no formal training in architecture, founded the firm of Shaw, Naess & Murphy with architects Alfred P. Shaw and Sigurd Naess in 1937. Murphy had previously been personal secretary to architect Ernest Graham, of the firm of Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, successors to D. H. Burnham & Company. Shaw and Naess had also been with the firm, Shaw having been a junior partner since 1929.

you are very correct in everthing you wrote, and i thank you for your input.my fondest memories when i was a young boy was to ride the illinois central to the loop, walking through MASHALL FIELD’S and attending a first run {and many times a world premeire, including I WANT TO LIVE,at the STATE LAKE, and NORTH BY NORTHWEST, at the UNITED ARTISTS,and it’s all gone now!One last thing. if you obtain a dvd of NORTH BY NORTHWEST under SPECIAL FEATURES you can actualy see ALFRED HITCHCOCK in front of the united artists theater signing autographs. THANK YOU AGAIN FOR YOUR INPUT!

I do not know when you were there last, chicagomike, but there have been substantial improvements both along Hollywood Boulevard and in the surrounding area. I would not call it a slum anymore.

The Chinese, while still a revered institution, has had some challenges over the last few years. Take a look at its page here on CT and you will see what I mean.

Finally, the Egyptian really is not what I would call a first run theater; as the home of the American Cinemathéque, it shows a mix of classics, themed retropectives, documentaries, and other films not often seen in commercial theaters, Depending on the day of the week in a particular month, it might be closed.

probably the best example of how to run a theater properly is the grauman’s chineese theater in hollywood. even tho 90% of hollywood blvd. is a slum with mostly seedy stores, this theater is kept up in excellent condition drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors a year not only to view the footprints of the stars in front of it, but they also show first run, first rate films, which also can be said for the EL CAPITAN theater across the street, and the EGYPTIAN theater down the block.

A true chicken-or-the egg question! I am sure that many, if not most of the patrons of the Loop Palaces of the time were just there to see a movie. Based on my experience (I saw quite a number of films in Loop area the late 1960’s and 70’s), the threat of violence was exaggerated, but as they say, perceptions are reality. The Loop theaters, given their proximity to CTA bus and train lines made it easier for the less affluent to have access to a movie theater, as the neighborhood theaters were disappearing in Chicago as they were in other metropolitan areas.

From the theater operators' perspective, these films were what brought people in at the time. During the period in question, parts of the Loop became very downtrodden and there was decreasing foot traffic, as many stores and restaurants were closing and the malls were proliferating in the suburbs. Under such conditions, crime tends to increase, and many Chicagoans who were Loop patrons now went to the suburban theaters both for convenience and due to perceptions of danger. But Chicago was hardly unique with regard to what happened in its central core retail and entertainment area.

In a way, it was fortunate in that in showing some kind of film – any kind of film – the result was that the owners had to do at least some basic maintenance and repair and in doing so, kept the wrecking ball away long enough so that when things got better economically, at least a few palaces were left to restore. The reason that the Oriental and the Chicago survived is at least partially due to what the then-owners did to keep the doors open.

If that’s the case, did the policy change of showing soft porn, kung-fu, horror features ect. invite that element around those theaters,driving away the general patronage, or did they change because of that element?

It might be one of the reasons, but not the only or even the most important. The downtown Chicago palaces, like those in many other cities, started their decline as cinemas with the advent of television and the Paramount Consent decree.

With the exception of Michael Todd and Cinestage theaters (which at the end were the Dearborn Cinemas) and perhaps one or two others, none of the really big houses in the Loop went to anything really like soft porn.

Many did go to cheaper horror, kung-fu and exploitation features in the 1960’s and 70’s. But what lead to the demise of so theaters in the Loop was a steep decline of patronage, some of it due to fear of street crime, and a city administration at the time that tended to look at the palaces as desirable parcels of real estate for commercial redevelopment

a lot of people might disagree, but the success of the film LOLITA, which was an excellent film, but had sexual content led the theater and other first rate movie palaces to start showing low budget sexual films, and eventually led to the downfall of the theater palaces of downtown chicago!

From the Sun Times movie directory dated Friday,May 7. 1971: The Stewardesses 3D OPEN LETTER TO LOOP THEATRE MANAGER Dear Sir, We saw ‘THE STEWARDESSES’ at the Loop Theatre. WOW! Are all stewardesses like the ones in the movie? (signed) John and Mary Dear John and Mary, I don’t know. I haven’t met every stewardess. Max Milstein, Mgr. Loop Theatre. (Mr. Milstein was a real person-real name. He worked for Balaban & Katz for years; I remember him from the United Artists theatre in the mid 60s. A short guy with glasses and a dry- sometimes wicked- sense of humour. As managers go, a nice guy.)

Re: the newspaper ads for “VIXEN”– on Fridays, for many weeks during the run, the advice columnist Ann Landers (sister of Dear Abby) was spoofed. One example (not the funniest, but the only one I have): from the Sun Times dated Friday, July 11, 1969- OPEN LETTER TO JANE ANDERS Dear Jane: I run a gas station. I’ve been going steady with the same gal for 20 years, but can’t get up the nerve to propose. Last week she suggested my taking her to see “RUSS MEYER’S VIXEN,” but I turned her down. What do you think? (signed) BASHFUL. Dear Bashful: There is no Fuel like an Old Fuel. —JANE. About a month or two before VIXEN started its run, I remember reading that quite a few guys would buy a ticket and time it so they would enter the theatre JUST to see the trailer for VIXEN- and then leave. If memory serves- admission price of $3.00 for perhaps a two and a half minute trailer? No wonder it was a smash hit.

tim – I have seen the ads for THE STEWARDESSES and he actually used that same ad base for Russ Meyer’s VIXEN which played for almost a year there. Sadly I never got to enter the Loop, Carnegie or Cinema though I saw them all from the outside once or twice.

JRS40, You’re absolutely right about not everyone being a fan of Mr. Brotman. Even Tom Brueggemanna acknowleged that Brotman was difficult. I worked at the Cinema Theatre for 6 months in 1981. I never got to know Brotman. I only saw him at the Cinema on it’s last day (September 13, 1981). It’s just if you look at the movie ads in the 1960s and 1970s, you will see that Brotman was a true showman. One of my favorite ads was back in October, 1976 when APE opened at the Loop. It had this big splashy full-page ad, boasting about the movie being in 3-D and all the exciting stuff in the movie. The movie was horrible, but it was another example of Brotman’s style. If you ever get a chance, try to get copies of newspaper ads for THE STEWARDESSES in 3-D. These ads are priceless.